Target Centermass

Author: Gunner

  • Former Texas Governor Ann Richards Dies

    Rest in peace.

    Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73.

    She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said.

    Richards was found to have esophageal cancer in March and underwent chemotherapy treatments.

    […]

    “I did not want my tombstone to read, ‘She kept a really clean house.’ I think I’d like them to remember me by saying, ‘She opened government to everyone,’” Richards said shortly before leaving office in January 1995.

    She was governor for one term, losing her re-election bid to Republican George W. Bush.

    I may not have agreed much politically with the lady, but I will say that she was quite an icon in the Lone Star political scene and certainly a Texan through and through.

    My best wishes to her family.

  • Blogroll Additions

    I have added three fine sites to my blogroll:

    Feel free to pay them a visit if you’re not already familiar with them.

  • 9/11: Five Years On

    As I’ve stated repeatedly, Ralph Peters is one of my favorite columnists and writers, dating back to my introduction to his fiction in 1993. In his latest column, Mr. Peters looks optimistically at our progress since the atrocity that was the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on America.

    The biggest story since 9/11 is that there hasn’t been an other 9/11. According to our hysterical media culture, everything’s always going wrong. The truth is that we’ve gotten the big things right.

    On this fifth anniversary of the cold-blooded murder of thousands of Americans by Islamist fanatics, it’s tempting to settle for grand rhetoric honoring our dead and damning our enemies. But the greatest tribute to those lost on that September morning is what we’ve since achieved.

    In this vile political season, with those on the left suggesting that our president’s a worse threat to civilization than Islamist terror, the rest of us should just review what’s happened – and what hasn’t[.]

    Mr. Peters’ keystone argument is that we haven’t been hit again on our home front by the murderous Islamist bastards. While this is true, I’ll be the first to admit that this is a rather “iffy” point. First, in some of the few plans we’ve known of meant to strike us here, luck has played a role in their prevention. Second, we have been aided by the terrorists’ apparent post-9/11 love for the long ball, as we are still extremely open prey for a great number of assaults of lesser nature throughout our homeland. Third, this whole keystone rides upon a razor’s edge — one mistake and it’s all gone, while all of the other progress may remain valid but then ignored.

    Still, Mr. Peters makes and supports his arguments for progress. I’ll turn them into mere bullet points and leave it to y’all to read the whole column for Mr. Peters’ explanations.

    • Islamist fanatics have not been able to stage a single additional attack on our homeland.
    • Al Qaeda is badly crippled.
    • Terrorists no longer operate in freedom.
    • Our enemies fear our military again.
    • Iraq has become al Qaeda’s Vietnam.
    • We’ve achieved new levels of domestic security without compromising civil liberties.
    • America is much stronger today than we were five years ago.

    Mr. Peters then sums up his five-year-later thoughts quite rationally.

    Does that mean everything’s perfect? Of course not. As noted above, some terrorists will manage to hit us again. But if attempt No. 500 succeeds, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth stopping the other 499. Yet, after the next attack, we’ll hear no end of trash-talk about how the War on Terror “failed.”

    The truth is that we’re winning. Hands down. We just can’t afford to revert to yesteryear’s weakness and indecision.

    What should we worry about? Plenty. First, the unscrupulous nature of those in the media who always discover a dark cloud in the brightest silver lining. They’re terror’s cheerleaders. Second, the rabid partisanship infecting our political system – when “getting Bush” is more important than protecting our country, something’s wrong.

    A third concern is the Internet’s empowerment of fanatics, conspiracy-theorists and all of the really good haters – on both extremes of the political spectrum. If there’s one thing all responsible citizens, conservative, centrist or liberal, should agree on, it’s that all extremism is un-American.

    On a related note, the White House has released its own detailed report of progress over the last five years since that terrible day when radical Islamists succeeded in bringing terror to our shores.

  • The 9/11 Conspiracy Theorists and Their Poisonous Reach

    Mary Katharine Ham takes a look at the 9/11 conspiracy buffs, those fools who see evil committed before them, deny it and start looking for an even greater, albeit hidden and unsupported, evil at home [hat tip to Jack M. blogging at Ace’s digs].

    Flight 77 careened over that same road on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 moments before slamming into the Pentagon and taking the lives of 184 people. Last night, a beam of light shone for each of those victims, rising toward the moon on a clear September night.

    Hani Hanjour, a 29-year-old Saudi, flew that plane into the Pentagon in a suicidal strike on the “Great Satan,” America , driven by a sick Islamofascist ideology.

    But there are some who don’t believe that. There are some who call that the “official story.” They say they seek the “truth” about what really happened on 9/11. The “truth,” according to them, is that a sinister cabal of neocon politicians arranged for a missile to hit the Pentagon and for a controlled demolition to bring down the Twin Towers.

    These neocons killed almost 3,000 Americans in a bid to increase both the power of the Bush administration and the willingness of American citizens to support military action in the Middle East, according to the conspiracy theorists. They subsequently covered it up with the “official story” of bin Laden and 19 hijackers, according to members of the “9/11 Truth Movement.”

    The head of this tinfoil hat brigade is Dylan Avery, a 22-year-old conspiracy theorist who has parlayed his creative version of history into two very popular Internet films, “Loose Change” and “Loose Change 2nd Edition.”

    Avery and his cohorts’ research, theories, and “evidence” are so laughable that it can be easy to laugh off the movement itself.

    Yes, it’s safe to say that that was my reaction for quite some time. In fact, up until this morning I was willing to shrug these fools off as either misled or nuttier than squirrel crap, but we’ll get back to this morning in a bit.

    Ms. Ham continues with her reasons for the need to more directly confront these twisted conspiracy ideas.

    It’s important for those of us who know what took the lives of 3,000 Americans five years ago today—four commercial planes with full loads of jet fuel and passengers driven by 19 murderous maniacs—to understand that there is a disturbingly large and vocal segment of the American population that doesn’t believe that.

    A recent Scripps poll found that more than a third of Americans believe 9/11 was an “inside job.”

    Truthers are professors and Democrat candidates for Congress.

    The Truthers believe the American government planned and carried out the carnage of Sept. 11 on its own people, and they’re determined to tell the rest of us all about it.

    Feel free to read it all, including the linked details of the “truthers.” Ms. Ham’s advice for dealing with the conspiracy theorists and those that have fallen under their sway is simple: aggressively present them with or guide them to the facts of 9/11.

    Take some time to watch “Screw Loose Change.” It is long, but it’s worth it to truly understand the dangerous deniers we’re facing in our own country. Read the “Screw Loose Change” blog and Popular Mechanics’ book, “Debunking 9/11 Myths.”

    But you might want to hold off until tomorrow. On this day, it will make you too angry.

    So why did my view on this matter change this morning, why the sudden urgency to confront these idiots? A key piece of my kick-off-the-day ritual is a perusal of my local paper, which these days is the Dallas Morning News. As part of the paper’s 9/11 opinion page coverage was a collection of thoughts from Dallas-area high school seniors. As I glanced over them, the following header caught my mind and I read one student’s thoughts.

    … Conspiracy-minded

    In May of my junior year, an online video titled Loose Change became a sensation. The documentary basically stated that the attacks were a hoax masterminded by a secret government conspiracy. Sounds a little far-fetched, right?

    Well, the students in my Advanced Placement American history class began questioning the legitimacy of Sept. 11. This class was college-level and filled with high-achieving students. It’s a shame when our future leaders begin to see the “land of the free, home of the brave” as a destructive place that perversely kills its own citizens.

    Kind of makes me want to cry all over again.

    Lela Atwood, Naaman Forest High School, Garland

    These dangerously idiotic and undermining “truths” are apparently being discussed openly during class at Naaman Forest High School, and discussed in such a manner that students are left unsure or even believing them. As scary as that is in and of itself were it to be anywhere in the great U.S. of A., that school is only 3.7 miles from my home and, should my wife and I have children and not move, would be the public school option for my family.

    That surpasses frightening and reaches into disgusting. The conspiracy fools must be confronted — facts must address shady twistings into demented “truths.”

    After all, I believe that children are our future; teach them well and let them not become demented, misled fruitcakes.

  • Some of History’s Other 9/11s

    For the military history buff, here are a few key events in time that befell the date September 11. The first was a famed moment in Scotland’s past while the latter two relate directly to our struggles today against an expansionist and violent Islamist movement.

    1297: The Battle of Stirling Bridge [hat tip to Smash]

    1565: Malta

    1683: Vienna

  • Five Years Later: Remembering 9/11

    [Originally posted on Sept. 11, 2004. My only update is that I watched the movie again last night. It was the first time my wife has viewed it.]

    I recommend this:
    9/11

    I also prefer to remember this, my alma mater’s first home game post-9/11. The color-coordinated shirts were the idea and hard work of a small handful of students. Thousands of dollars were raised for victims’ charities.
    Red, White and Blue-Out at Kyle Field, 9/22/01
    (image from the Houston Chronicle)

  • Links o’ the Day

    Link dumps — the I’m-watching-football-tonight way of blogging.

    Dean Esmay: Helping Us Through A Crisis
    Help this fine member of my blogroll out if you can.

    Iraq takes control of armed forces

    British and United States troops yesterday handed over control of Iraq’s armed forces to its own government – a move described by US officials as a crucial step, but which still leaves most of the country’s security under direct coalition control.

    […]

    The US-led multinational forces in Iraq, commanded by General George Casey, have been giving orders to the new Iraqi armed forces via a joint chain of command. But now the chain of command flows directly from the Iraqi prime minister in his role as commander-in-chief.

    The Iraqi army is made up of ten divisions, now numbering about 130,000 troops, and the Iraqis are expected to take over more divisions from the coalition in the coming months, although there is no exact timetable.

    Maj-Gen William Caldwell, a US military spokesman, has indicated that the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, will make the final decision on how quickly his military assumes control over new divisions.

    “They can move as rapidly … as they want. I know, conceptually, they’ve talked about perhaps two divisions a month,” he said.

    Mr Maliki described the move as a great step forward. “The Iraqi army now, by the courage of its people and its sons in the Iraqi army, rebuilds itself again,” he said.

    In a word, significant.

    U.S. Air Force officer goes missing in Kyrgyz capital

    A U.S. Air Force officer stationed at the air base near Bishkek disappeared while shopping in the Kyrgyz capital, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

    Maj. Jill Metzger, of the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing, was separated from a group of servicemen while visiting a department store on Tuesday afternoon and has not been seen since, officials at the Manas air base said in a statement.

    It said a group of 22 U.S. military investigators and logistics officers were searching for Metzger together with the U.S. Embassy and Kyrgyz security and law enforcement services.

    Op-For‘s John has more on the story, including an interesting cultural aspect of the country that could play an ominous, though I feel highly unlikely, role.

    Iraq Hawks: Getting “Outside the Narrative”

    Now that we’ve established the worldview and analytical tendencies of the “dead-end Iraq War supporter,” also known as “me,” an honest reassessment of the war requires stepping outside of comfortable narratives while avoiding seductive replacements. Without diminishing the value of the struts that support my established point of view – distrust of the media, patience, a belief in the subtlety of deep trends that come to dominate large historical changes, etc – the challenge is to establish an emotionless, rational framework for analysis; a framework that goes deeper than both the BIG philosophy and the splintered, conflicting snippets of war’s progress.

    Give it a read to see where he’s coming from and exactly where he hopes to reach. INDC Bill has just set himself to large task, and the road could be interesting to follow.

    Three Indicted for Sending U.S. Secrets, Equipment to Yemen

    Three naturalized U.S. citizens were indicted by a federal grand jury in California for allegedly acquiring secret U.S. defense information and stolen military equipment and conspiring to send them to Yemen.

    The four-count indictment for conspiracy to possess and transmit defense information, attempted unlawful export of defense articles and related charges was handed up Aug. 31 and unsealed today, U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said.

    The men face five to 10 years in prison and fines of $250,000 to $1 million on each count.

    “We will use all appropriate legal means at our disposal to detect, disrupt, and hold accountable those who seek to do us harm, whether they act within or outside our borders,” Scott said in a statement.

    Ahmen Ahmed Ali, 56, of Bakersfield, California, allegedly received secret defense documents from a government undercover agent and transmitted them to Yemen by fax or courier between June 2005 and August 2006, according to the indictment.

    He allegedly conspired with Mohamed Al-Rahimi, 62, of Bakersfield, to receive stolen government property, and with Ibrahim A. Omer, of Fort Worth, Texas, to ship military items such as body armor and chemical protective suits to Yemen.

    Though the names might hint at something, as would the ties to Yemen, don’t think for a second that any particular religion will be mentioned in the story.

    After 5 Years, OBL Releases New Video with 9-11 Killers

    Maybe This Will Stop the 9-11 Conspiracy Theorists!…
    How many time does OBL have to take credit for these murderous attacks on innocent Americans before people get it?

    Gateway Pundit, though a fine blogger, obviously doesn’t understand conspiracy theorists. They only need a target; the route to that destination can be ever changing. Now it can be claimed that Osama was but a pawn. He was made better, stronger, faster by that evil and far-reaching New World Order comprised of Bush (either, any if one includes Jeb), Cheney, Halliburton, the famed military-industrial complex (the violent video game and car magnet industries included), and Pizza Hut. Hey, scoff if you will at that last one, but I’ll wager a lot of pizzas were ordered as America was generally glued to its TV sets in the days following 9/11. I don’t know, maybe it was Domino’s. Pizza Hut sucks too much to attain the level of evil required.

    Chafee Delays Vote on Bolton Nomination

    Sen. Lincoln Chafee has pulled the plug on a push by his fellow Republicans to confirm John Bolton as U.N. ambassador, saying he had more questions that needed to be answered.

    The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was expected to vote along party lines during a committee meeting Thursday to approve Bolton. But the panel postponed the vote after Chafee, R-R.I., expressed doubt.

    “Sen. Chafee said he still had questions that were not answered,” said the senator’s spokesman, Stephen Hourahan.

    Boo! Hiss! C’mon, confirm the man already. Despite earlier concerns, Bolton has represented U.S. interests well so far at the worthlessness that is the United Nations and has not yet, as previously feared, threatened other diplomats for their lunch money or gone on a well-deserved wedgie-spree. The man’s restraint has been remarkable.

    ‘Goat-free roads made me speed’

    A Swiss man caught speeding on a Canadian highway has blamed his actions on the absence of goats on the roads.

    The man was caught driving at 161 km/h (100mph) in a 100 km/h (60mph) zone.

    A traffic officer’s notes said the Swiss driver had said he was taking advantage “of the ability to go faster without risking hitting a goat”.

    Canadian police spokesman Joel Doiron said he had never found a goat on the highways of eastern Ontario in his 20 years of service.

    “Nobody’s ever used the lack of goats here as an excuse for speeding,” Mr Doiron told the AFP news agency.

    “I’ve never been to Switzerland, but I guess there must be a lot of goats there,” he said.

    Headline of the freakin’ day. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

  • Terrorists Promise More Attacks Like 9/11

    Also predicted are the demise of the United States and a pending Islamist domination of Europe. Yes, folks, this is a know-your-enemy type of must-read.

    Last year, to mark the fourth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, this column included translated proclamations by Al Qaeda leaders promising the future killing of millions of Americans and the collapse of America, as well as statements by Arab writers calling the war on terror “a chapter in World War III.”

    Some pundits have chosen to reject such analogies. But, as Osama bin Laden wrote in his “Letter to the Muslims of Iraq and [Islamic] Nation” on December 27, 2004: “The conflict in the West is a fateful war between unbelief and Islam, between the army of Muhammad, the army of belief, and the people of the cross. … The important, tremendous, and dangerous issue today in the entire world is this Third World War.”

    Much has happened in the war on terror over the past year. The Arab press has been full of articles on the end of America. Walid Nouhad wrote in the Bahrain daily Al-Wasat on June 20 on the coming “breakup of the United States … in the same fashion as those empires that came before it.” America’s “destiny” is to be “just like the Soviet Union” when “it falls apart,” Saud Mokhtar wrote in the Saudi daily Al-Madinah on July 10.

    Other articles in the Arab press have featured interviews with religious and Islamist figures making crude calls for the West to convert to Islam.

    “Our aim is to put down roots in the European continent, and to act quietly and in accordance with the laws, so that one day we may see all of Europe Muslim!” the Turkish fundamentalist leader Nijmuddin Erbakan, a former Turkish prime minister who headed the Islamic Welfare Party, said, according to an April piece on the Arabic reformist Web site Elaph.com by a Germany-based Kurdish journalist, Tarek Hamo.

    Go read it all [hat tip to Dr. Rusty].

  • Femtroopers?

    Perhaps these can salvage my heart-felt fondness for the Star Wars saga that I thought to be forever shredded by the travesties that were the prequels.

    Hat tip to Lex, though he seems almost ashamed to post it. As for me, I say clone ’em.

  • Bush Puts 9/11 Suspects in Gitmo, Congress on the Spot

    President Bush gave what seems to be an important speech today that may prove to be a key turning point in our nation’s policy against Islamist terrorists.

    Just a few days shy of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, President Bush invoked the shock of that day, and the fears it unleashed, to drop some eye-opening news Wednesday: 14 of the world’s most vile suspected terrorists have been transferred from secret CIA prisons abroad to Guatanamo Bay, Cuba.

    In a midday White House speech, the president acknowledged for the first time the existence of the CIA prisons, where the 14 suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 plot, had been held. He said that under tough questioning, the suspects had given up information that helped stop several, mostly familiar, plots — from a plan to fly jetliners into London’s Heathrow Airport to one to blow up the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan. And he said the suspects were being transferred so they could be tried under the administration’s proposed military tribunal system, to be created by legislation he sent to Congress Wednesday and hoped lawmakers would approve this month.

    The speech was largely in part political theater, the opening act of the Republicans’ fall strategy of flexing their anti-terrorism muscles. It cast doubt on any and all who question Bush’s strategy, including the Supreme Court. Even so, there was much in Bush’s remarks on which all sides could agree: There should be clear guidelines for the treatment and questioning of detainees. If U.S. interrogators abide by those guidelines, they shouldn’t have to worry about being sued by terror suspects or prosecuted. And, most certainly, it is time to try suspected terrorists who plotted against the nation and bring them to justice.

    The hard part, as it has been always been, is finding a way to balance the need to protect the nation against terrorists without compromising its values. How can information be extracted from terror suspects without endangering American troops who become prisoners? How can terror suspects be put on trial fairly without giving them access to classified information that might reveal confidential informants?

    These are difficult questions over which well-intentioned people disagree. Sadly, many of the Bush administration’s policies on the treatment of prisoners, and its proposals to prosecute them, have hurt America’s image abroad and been of dubious legality — a fact now cemented in law.

    In June, the Supreme Court struck down the administration’s controversial system of military commissions, asserting that they violated U.S. military law and the Geneva Conventions for dealing with prisoners of war. The problem, the court found, was not just the tribunals but Bush’s insistence that he could go it alone, without the checks and balances the Constitution prescribes. If Bush wants to keep the commissions, the justices said, he’ll have to fix those problems and persuade Congress to go along.

    Of course, bringing the most notorious al-Qaeda prisoners to Guantanamo is designed to pressure Congress into approving the administration’s hard-line approach. But, at the same time, the administration is at least grudgingly expressing a new willingness to work with Congress to devise a new system.

    Dr. Rusty has the full transcript.

    Captain Ed has some excellent analysis, including the following:

    So why reveal the program now and transfer the detainees from the CIA to the DoD? For one thing, the CIA apparently feels that these plotters have been tapped out in terms of operational intelligence. Also, with the Hamdan decision, he cannot set up secret military commissions to try them. The court tasked Congress with establishing the tribunals for all non-POWs in custody — POWs don’t get trials or courts-martial except for crimes they commit while in custody — and Bush has to wait on Congress to act.

    He obviously does not want to wait long. He has already promulgated some rules of evidence and procedure to Congress, and the Hill has found much with which they disagree.

    Meanwhile, Ace live-blogged it and quickly seized on the true intent of the speech.

    Wants Congress To Repudiate Supreme Court Decision On Granting Geneva Protections For Terrorists: Congress must list the “specific, recognizable offenses” that will invoke a War Crimes prosecution against interrogators.

    Nice. Make Congress specifically say what is illegal — and, by their omission, what is legal.

    Congress dare not make belly-slapping illegal.

    Put up or shut up.

    Still, one must wonder just how much pressure Congress, and especially its democrat members, will actually endure if the media feels no need to press the issue. Already, the media seems to be congealing on a different aspect of the story, as the following headlines show:

    Question: if a gauntlet is thrown down and there’s no one around except those that refuse to hear it, does it really make a soundbite?